Kaplan explains in this part of the chapter about a project she had presented to her students a few years ago along with her social psychologist Charlie Seashore. The project they presented was called "The Good Girl Workshop" and it was for everyone, not just for women. The project's purpose was to show the universal blocks that keep stumbling for art therapist. The blocks were to represent the "desire to be liked." From the past, the therapists have had problems with clients liking the therapists or going to see one. For a therapist to base his or her techniques on social activist, has to respect his or her self and have the clients respect them. The art therapist must not be shy, but rather brave courageous and realize all the social problems occurring in the world now. By the art therapist realizing all the issues happening with racism and sexism along with economic problems, they are able to connect to their client on their level and not be afraid to reach to their certain issue without be shy or nervous on trying to help their client.
Self-knowledge, truth talking, hope, and courage:
Kaplan explains in this part of the chapter about a project she had presented to her students a few years ago along with her social psychologist Charlie Seashore. The project they presented was called "The Good Girl Workshop" and it was for everyone, not just for women. The project's purpose was to show the universal blocks that keep stumbling for art therapist. The blocks were to represent the "desire to be liked." From the past, the therapists have had problems with clients liking the therapists or going to see one. For a therapist to base his or her techniques on social activist, has to respect his or her self and have the clients respect them. The art therapist must not be shy, but rather brave courageous and realize all the social problems occurring in the world now. By the art therapist realizing all the issues happening with racism and sexism along with economic problems, they are able to connect to their client on their level and not be afraid to reach to their certain issue without be shy or nervous on trying to help their client.
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The art therapist and the art therapy client
In order to be a good therapist, you have to understand everything about your client. A good therapist is a social activist that looks at the clients family, friends, views and culture and tries to see what the problems are and tries to change the culture that impacts the client negatively. For most therapist, they are women and mostly white women, however the clients are diverse. To be a good therapist, she or he must look to see how one thing can be imbalanced and change the world of another. "The therapist can keep confidentiality sacrosanct and still reach into the client's world, through the use of Self, perhaps even change it." (Kaplan, 51) Social action projects:
This section is about more of an art therapist role in social action projects. The first project Kaplan discusses is Operation Adventure. "Operation Adventure was an alternative education program using the arts as the vehicle." The programs purpose was to bring kids to learn new things and use art and way to make learning more fun and relevant. Teachers were not need, but adults who were willing to volunteer and were interesting people. The program started in the years when the civil rights movement was occurring and the operation was helping citizens speak up for what they believe in. Art helped people speak up for what they believed in and this made the operation more popular and fun to be in. Kaplan took the operation to a small section in Chicago called Boyle Heights. The operation was huge there and many people learned from it. The classes were diverse which made it a huge impact during this time in history. The operation lasted for four years, and some of the volunteers still use the operation today in other cities. The Operation Adventure is shut down now in Chicago because of tragic events, but the operation made a huge impact on the people when it had first began during the civil rights. The power of art:
In part one of chapter 2, the author uses a personal experience to lead into the topic of the power of art. When the author was in junior high, she was put into the "dumb classes" and this resulted in her not going to school regularly. Her mom went to the school. but the school did not listen to her at the time. Her mom decided to send her to a Saturday art class. Kaplan went to these classes every Saturday and this began her life as a painter and an art therapist. Her teacher at the Saturday classes, Mrs. Long, believed "that a supportive emotional environment was essential to the creation of art- that no child's art should be criticized but only praised, and that they teaching of technique was not only unimportant but hindered or even stopped the child's creativity entirely. " (Kaplan, 44) Kaplan was convinced that Mrs. Long was an art therapist, but she did not call herself that. When Kaplan became an artist and a art therapist, she realized her clients drew more landscapes instead of people; Kaplan drew people when she was in the Saturday classes to help her express her thoughts and emotions. With social change, music is a type of art that the entire country is connected too. The image of music and art has the power to shape the view of society. An example Kaplan uses in Andy Warhol's soup can piece shows society what is important to perceive, but also hard to bear. Art therapy has the power to show a person's interior landscape of what was, what is, and what might be. Art therapy helps people by starting with one landscape and when the person is making progress, the landscape changes along with their behavior. Chapter 2 is based on the reflections on a life. A person's history is needed during the process of their development. If one was to have a traumatic history, then art therapy would be useful to help that person survive and overcome it. "The life story is viewed as an important tool that allows the listener to capture and understand the teller's context from the teller's point of view." (pg. 41) This would be the clients part of coming to use art therapy and the art therapist's job is to understand the client and go deep into their world. The author goes on about telling her techniques and strategies as being a art therapist and how she is more than a therapist. One strategy the author mentions is painting. By using paint, the person has to use all the parts, from colors and brushes, to make a whole. Meaning the person has to use everything he or she has in order to become whole again. Another strategy that is mentioned is colors. The person is able to pick and choose what colors to use to make the art work whole and the colors represent the methods to choose from when trying to make themselves whole again.
The art therapist as social activist
Art therapy is connected to social activities and this is because an art therapist is also a social activist. A therapist is aware of the interconnectivity between a individual and the social imbalance. "This awareness and commitment should not be underestimated." (Kaplan, 31) An art therapist, who is also known as social activist, give most of their priority to the society that is voiceless, who are challenged and who are seek wholeness in divided relationships. The activist-therapist takes time to understand the political neutrality and therapeutic passivity and serves as the oppression and injustice. Depth psychology and the interdependent self:
In the part, Kaplan goes off to describe depth psychology and how it connects to the main idea. Depth psychology is used as a framework of the individual and society and how they are interrelated. " This framework assumes that there exists a unus mundus, a latin word that means one world, in which there is no separation between one's inner, psychological experience and the external physical world, but rather that these domains are inextricably interdependent." (Kaplan) The dominant voice would represent society and with that it tries to find the conscious awareness of the individual. This conscious awareness is represented in society and with that its the dominant voice. Those voices that are in the person's conscious are pushed in society's shadows and are stuck there because the dominant voice can not come out when the mind is already in the shadows. Depth psychology can also be viewed as the interdependent nature of a relationship between humans, meaning humans connecting with society. People are shaped by the pressures that come from society, but society is shaped by the persons responses. "Individual and collective experiences and actions co-create one another in a reciprocal field." (Kaplan) Therapy: A microcosm of society: Art therapists and their clients abstract the ideas of society into a microcosm of the therapeutic relationship. This meaning the areas in the world that are unbalanced and need balancing to have a relationship. " [We art therapist] co-creators engaged together with our clients in their struggle, which is ultimately also our own." (Junge, art therapist) Junge was discussing how their clients connection to art therapy and the real world can be an actively challenge or an easy reinforcement. Also Junge discussed about how even though all these problems they hear from their clients come from their clients mouths, Junge and other art therapists treat their as their own, They connect their skills of art therapy to them to help them. They believe their clients and themselves are interrelated and in order to fix the problems their clients are facing, they must be actively engaged in the journey they are about to begin. Art therapy: Whom does it serve?:
In this part of the chapter the author, Kaplan, asks many questions about art therapy and its involvement with social actions. Kaplan said when writing this book, she had to ask many difficult questions in order to get her point across that art therapy does go with social actions. "Whom or what in society does art therapy privilege or serve? In what ways might art therapy participate in oppressive perspectives and dynamics or marginalization? Does it contain within its practice an examination of its enculturating role as well as processes to mitigate the transmission of ideology and social structure." (pg. 24, Kaplan) Kaplan discusses how art therapy is a less cultural-bound topic and that there are other social activities that connect to culture more, however she explains that art therapy has shaped the view of art therapies arrangements within cultures origins. If people were not to examine the world's view of social order and art then, without anyone knowing art therapy could reinforce the structures of dominations and support the topics involved in the injustices. Homophobia as working example: Kaplan took an example, homophobia, and used it to explain a social action and how art therapy is helping it. Homophobia is the dislike of or prejudice against homosexual people. When homosexuality first became a thing, scientists announced it was an abnormal and a expression of psychopathology thing. Doctors said the people with this should go to a psychiatric facility. In 1987, scientists and doctors announced it was no longer a mental disorder. Homophobia, however, is a social problem and still a problem today. There are social groups that dislike homosexuals and some doctors recommend help for some of the members that have taken their position in disliking the homosexuality to fear. Art therapy is one of the techniques that is used to help the people and connect to them. By doctors using art therapy, they can help the people and also have them reconnect to society and the social problems happening now. Introduction: How the twain meet
Kaplan describes her first chapter with how the ideas of art therapy and social action came together. Both ideas we conceived from feminist origins and from progressive political leanings. The relationship between the two are not "entirely self-evident." Art therapy does not really get brought up with social justices and social action does not specifically address psychological and intrapsychic wounds of the people so as the author ask "how exactly does the healing profession of art therapy intersect with the political praxis of social action?" This question is the main idea of chapter one. Kaplan goes into great detail about how the relationship came to be and how over all the both ideas have worked together to help individuals and society. The image and social action: One way art therapy and social action are linked together is through the idea and power of image. "Images can concurrently heal personal- collective wounds while demanding a response to injustice."(22) The image is meant to be shown and between the individual and the collective. Cassirer, a author how studied art therapy, believed the image could be transformed through symbolic forms. Carl Jung., another scientist who studied art therapy, believed the image could connect the unconscious. According to Jung, the image can help the people in two ways. One way would be to heal the individual's conscious if that individual denied the aspect of an idea or thought. The second way is to use the image to connect to the unconscious mind. "Throughout the seeing of the image.... the patient's relationship to unconscious material begins to change." (Jung) Kaplan uses these two authors/ researchers as an example of how art therapy and social action are linked together as one method. Image is the way people see things and how the individuals can grasp the idea of the method. |